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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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No major slideshow today.  Manned test of this thing with a legit payload.  ISRU unit, and a Mun Emergency Return Vehicle.  Just a small ship to get two kerbals home in an emergency. 

The launch went well.  I had a lot of oscillations on the last launch with gave me a very inclined orbit last time.  This time, I disabled the flaps on the orbiter during launch, and it actually helped a lot!

Caught a nice munar insertion burn, then after the cargo is unloaded.  The shuttled lands vertically, then extends the wheels, fires the main engines for a split second to lift back off, then the ship tips forward with RCS, and lands back down horizontally on its wheels.  Unloads the cargo, then actually takes off just like it would in an atmosphere... just quicker.

I had some issues with re-entry.  Apparently I need to watch the AoA on this one a lot closer than its smaller cousin, which pretty much re-enters by itself.

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Still haven't figured out how to come down by the KSC from the Mun, so here it is landed in the middle of nowhere.

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1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

actually takes off just like it would in an atmosphere

Good fun, too!  :)  I have found that if the terrain is somewhat dicey for the take-off run, it can be wise to taxi to some incline to use as a ramp to get clear and then set attitude.

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14 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

Good fun, too!  :)I have found that if the terrain is somewhat dicey for the take-off run, it can be wise to taxi to some incline to use as a ramp to get clear and then set attitude.

I'm toying with the idea of sticking some SRBs under the nose which would be tuned to tilt it up about 30-40 degrees right before flooring it, in case it's ever on not-great terrain and "driving" somewhere better wouldn't be an option.  I could even use the landing legs for a little extra leverage so it doesn't tilt on the wheels.

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So I recently built a simplistic little turboprop passenger plane with some mods.

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Mods used are

AirplanePlus = Cockpit, Landing Gear,and Plane Tail.

TweakScale = All shrunken down parts.

SXT = Engines and Passenger Fuselage.

ProceduralWings = Wings and Tailfins.

Edited by Audiobotguy03
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Finally finished tweaking my long-range ship, found I have an open Eve transfer window and went to Eve.

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Landing went without a hitch. (well, almost. It flipped engines up, but luckily I had two parachutes installed just for this purpose - flipped it back.) We'll see how return goes. Insane amounts of delta-V, but only like 1.1 TWR. For now, collecting science and refueling.

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On 5/18/2013 at 7:08 AM, 99TheCreator said:

I graduated today, bittersweet if you ask me.

EDIT: oh you mean in ksp, i sent my mun tug back to kerbin for one last time.

I graduated today two days ago, bittersweet if you ask me.

Oh, In KSP, I've been playing around with using the Baguette tanks non-radially. Surprisingly very efficient and economic for small sats

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Only need two external tanks to take 0.6t to the mun with nearly a km of dv to spare. Currently trying to push this to the limit and see how much I can lift while still retaining the economic benefits, so i'll put some heavier payloads on it later.

I've been waiting for this day for nearly two years, and then I go and forget to do it on the actual day :mad::(

 

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My Mun colony mission has been cancelled after 2 full years of operation. The parts down there are old and out of date and I need crew for an expanded minmus mining mission. So, brought all 31 of the crew home for a quick break (9 days) before I fling them into space again. Here's the last of them docking with the X10-b because the X10 is serving out the rest of its' days as a coral reef east of KSC and the X10-a is being refitted with a left wing and upgraded brakes. The X10-b can land safely but needs a couple of days turn around to reload the barf bags and clean the passenger cabin as re-entry is 'exciting'.

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I completed the fifth and final "simple" probe landing on the Moon in my RP1 campaign:

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I took some chances this time, landing among the Highland mountains of lunar far-side.

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I set down on a 16 degree slope, but the lander footprint was wide enough to handle it.  My remaining probe-lander contracts are for rovers and sample-returns to Earth.  Those are going to be harder.

Back at Earth, the rarely-flown quad-booster variant of my workhorse launch vehicle lofts an Agena-like docking-target spacecraft:

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And, having done its duty, the upper stage deorbits itself.

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With the target vehicle up and operational, the manned launch proceeds...

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The ultimate goal rises over the horizon...  It's not time for it yet, but plans are being made along with the tools to implement them.

But for now, rendezvous and docking:

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The crew will fire the Agena engine to transfer into a higher orbit, then again to return to a lower orbit, demonstrating the ability to maneuver docked craft.

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A few days later, another crew launches into the pre-dawn skies of Florida...

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Their goal is the same as the last mission's...  docking practice with the waiting Agena target vehicle.

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The crew undocks, maneuvers away, then approaches to dock again three more times, giving both crew members practice with the controls.

Three more Gemini spacecraft are under construction, but I have higher hopes for them.  A lot higher.

We shall see...

 

Edited by RoboRay
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I had a busy day today.  Finished assembling my Minmus station with the second fuel/power wing & the greenhouse/ISRU wing.  Then my manned Duna missions arrived.

Duna Courier entering Ike orbit.  I didn't have an Ike lander, and don't really have the spare fuel to use the Duna lander, so Ike's surface will remain kerbal-free for now.  I did get some good science in low & high orbits before heading on to Duna itself

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Once in Duna orbit, the Courier docked with the rest station after some quick engineering work to move the spare docking port out of the way.

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The lander was nearly 3 weeks behind, but once it arrived, Kelrik did another EVA to swap out docking ports just prior to the actual docking.  The entire process actually worked much better than I expected, and got me a spare docking port on the rest station for the tankers to use.

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I had a contract to investigate an anomaly on Duna, so after waiting a few orbits for the target area to come back to daylight, everyone boarded the lander & headed down.  Caught a nice image of Ike-rise just above the atmosphere

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Landing went smooth, and the crew planted a flag before preparing for the anomaly investigation.  Anomaly has been blurred for security reasons.  But its just a random pile of rocks.  That's all.  Any similarity to anything else is just a trick of the eyes making a pattern when there is none.  Nothing to see here. :wink:

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Kelrik the engineer volunteered for the actual investigation.  Once he checked out the anomaly & found nothing worth beating on with his wrench, he tried paragliding back to the lander.  Landing was a little rough, but otherwise everything went well.

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Last but not least, my second Moho lander arrived and landed successfully,  The first one was the victim of a bad transfer maneuver, and somehow entered Moho's SoI with ~5000 m/s orbital velocity.  I tend to over-build my designs to have some excess dV, but that one was way beyond even the safety margin I use.  The second one went better, and the transfer stage actually still had fuel remaining when it was staged away to crash into Moho.  I also apparently lowered the spring setting too low on the gear - they just totally compressed on landing until running into the cubic octagonal strut I stuck on the bottom to shield the lander's engines.

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Well, I finally was able to begin Munar landing tours over the weekend. On Saturday, the Old Bessie 7 tanker craft I'd launched on Friday arrived at space station Munport and docked, allowing Strange Cargo (already docked at the station) to refuel and giving the station's main reserve tank a partial refueling as well. With the Spamcan 7b 4-passenger lander also already at the station, Jeb transferred over to the lander with tourists Marburry, Munsby and Isadon Kerman to a point near where I had a contract to conduct a surface survey along the equator in the Midlands. The lander successfully touched down at the target area, at which point the rover Lunkhead drove from its landing site 11 kilometers way to where Jeb had parked the Spamcan.

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I should mention the drive was at night. The HullCamerasVDS mod rules - especially that night vision camera that comes with the mod. Lunkhead's coming up on the Spamcan in this screenie.

After putting down a flag marking the ore content at the landing site as well as the grade, Jeb transferred to the rover and conducted the survey successfully, which was about another nine klicks north of the equator. Lunkhead then returned Jeb to the lander just in time; the Spamcan lifted off shortly thereafter and affected a successful return to Munport.

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Spamcan on approach to Munport. Though it isn't efficient, the "straight up, then burn to orbit" launch profile is pretty easy to pull off, I will say that.

The lander was then prepped for a second excursion to the surface, this time with tourists Madsted, Irdred and Bobsy Kerman aboard along with engineer Julfry Kerman, who was the subject of an ongoing LMO rescue mission. The excursion took place successfully on Sunday, with the Spamcan returning safely to Munport after Julfry planted a flag in a different spot with a little daylight. Once all of the passengers were transferred back, Strange Cargo departed Munport and set a course for home, arriving safely at her designated berth at space station Kerbinport. An Auk II 8-passenger spaceplane was sent up to rendezvous with the station and bring the passengers home. Meanwhile, I drove Lunkhead along Mun's equator for a little ways trying to reach the Farside Crater, all the while looking for a spot with better ore. Drove nine klicks in the wrong direction before realizing it, then turned around. After I got back to Jeb's flag, that's when the fun began.

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♫ Just the good ol' boys / Never meanin' no harm / Beats all you never saw / Been in trouble with the law / Since the day they was born... ♫

Let's just say on that particular score that I was happy for quicksaving. After three attempts, I decided that maybe that first spot wasn't so bad after all - especially after I double-checked the data from the Mun Charlie scanner probe this morning, which showed that the spot where the rover landed was one of the good ones on Mun. The reverted rover is about twenty klicks from its original position; I'll be driving it back that way next opportunity.

Earlier this morning, the Auk arrived at Kerbinport. After the passengers were transferred, the plane departed the station and successfully landed (after a pretty harrowing 40-degree descent that I pulled out of about the same time I hit the outer marker - ten klicks away) at KSC 09. Five contracts and √1.1M were cleared in the process - enough funds earned for me to launch my first refinery craft to Mun.

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Yes, that is a Twin-Boar in the core. Yes, it's set at full power. Yes, the TWR of this beast right now is about 1.15. Yes, that is an ugly-looking and ungainly procedural fairing...

The Piper Alpha 7 - which will properly become Piper Alpha once it reaches Mun - has reached orbit and has burned for Mun; Protractor says the craft will pass 15 kilometers from the surface, while the game doesn't even record an encounter for some reason. Hopefully it'll change its mind about that next time I fire up the game. I've got enough funds either for a companion refinery craft (Deepwater Horizon) to go to Minmus or to launch space station Minmusport, but probably not both. I'll probably wind up going with Minmusport since I haven't been able to conduct ground surveys on Minmus yet. Hoping to wind up in the same spot that I had in 1.3.x in the Great Flats, though. I probably oughta get a rover up there to do the survey too...

 

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My wife decided to sleep in this morning, so I got some extra KSP time today.  Spent some time experimenting with a Mk 3 shuttle for the first time ever. 

First came the flight tests of the shuttle itself.  For the tests, it was fitted with quad Wheesley turbofans to get it off the ground, which were jettisoned at altitude. and with some help of a Vector for the climb & turn back to KSC,

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The first version flew mostly ok, so a few changes were made to create a fully space-worthy shuttle (RCS + OMS pods & landing chutes), which was then flight tested again

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After I managed not to crash too many times during flight testing, I put the shuttle into the VAB with external tank & SRB's and tried launching it.

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First try was a complete disaster.  Which is why I was doing this in sandbox instead of career.  Second try made it off the pad, and was doing good barely flyable right up until SRB burn out.  Then the "barely" turned into "completely un-"   At some point I jettisoned the external tank & eventually it stabilized enough for a successful ditching.  That was the best part of the entire flight, and was accomplished with no loss of parts.

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Unrelated to my flight testing, I also had a "gather science from the surface of Ike" contract, and when I switched to my Ike Surveyor, it had an interesting view of Duna, I think with the sun rising behind it.

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On 9/29/2018 at 8:37 PM, Geonovast said:

I'm toying with the idea of sticking some SRBs under the nose which would be tuned to tilt it up about 30-40 degrees right before flooring it, in case it's ever on not-great terrain and "driving" somewhere better wouldn't be an option.  I could even use the landing legs for a little extra leverage so it doesn't tilt on the wheels.

That definitely sounds like it could work, once.  But I imagine the SRB would have to be calibrated for a range of gravity wells ... what it takes on Tylo would probably flip you completely over on Minmus.  Are a bank of Vernors on the underside of the nose not strong enough?  It would be more controllable and reusable if it works at all.  

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2 minutes ago, FinalFan said:

That definitely sounds like it could work, once.  But I imagine the SRB would have to be calibrated for a range of gravity wells ... what it takes on Tylo would probably flip you completely over on Minmus.  Are a bank of Vernors on the underside of the nose not strong enough?  It would be more controllable and reusable if it works at all.  

Probably, and if I was designing a more versatile ship, I would probably do something like this.  But it'd be more of an emergency type thing, and it's really only meant to go to the Mun.  Maaaaybe Ike.

I might stick some sepratrons in a KIS container or something.

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Today KSS Voyager has performed a massive direction-changing burn and is now on the intercept course for the Sarnus system. Encounter is expected in 1 year 194 days. (not pictured: epic struggle of 6 extremely-powerful radiators against the heat produced by the engine)

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Normally even I would consider the flight plan to be rather wasteful, but this ship has a lot of dV, so I decided that speed was more important than fuel efficiency. And, don't worry about the 6 brave kerbals on-board: there will be enough dV left for them to visit every moon and then return home.

Meanwhile, another expedition arrived to Ike. This time, landing spot was picked in higher latitudes. All for the majestic view of Duna in the skies, of course.

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Deployed seismic pod for the hammer (seismic analysis) experiment.

First, finding a configuration of Jetwing that won't flip over with the extra payload... I'm  sure @Angel-125  didn't foresee putting an engine on the parachute/payload slot... :) 

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Thrust limiter to 18, and the Jetwing flew perfectly with the pilot carrying a seismic pod.

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Pod 1 deployed after a rather rough landing...

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...and a flight back to base.

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In addition to the second pod, the pilot got extra fuel... Other than what was in the command pod, it appeared I didn't take a drop of monopropellant, drained the command pod dry. Luckily ISRU on board could renew the monoprop supply, and Jetwing doesn't burn that much...

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Edited by Sharpy
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5 minutes ago, Castille7 said:

It's from an old TV show, if you don't have grey in your beard you may not recognize it :D

I shave, enlighten me please, what show ?

;)

Edited by Triop
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7 minutes ago, Triop said:

I shave, enlighten me please, what show ?

;)

Lost in Space. The original. Bill Mumy plays Will Robinson...

I recognized it, and for the record my beard is more salt than pepper these days. I'll admit it.

Edited by capi3101
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